The findings of a new national study showing the vast majority of female executives believe the glass ceiling is still very much in place in Canada come as no surprise to Janet Austin, CEO of the Vancouver YWCA.

She cited Statistics Canada numbers indicating that the gender gap perceived by the majority of 500 female executives polled by Ipsos Reid from June 18 to 25 this year is grounded in reality.

For example, she cited a Statistics Canada figure indicating women’s full-time earnings had dropped to 71 per cent of men’s in 2008 from 77 per cent in the late 1980s.

Women didn’t fare much better when it came to promotion to management, according to the recent Conference Board of Canada report.

While the number of women in senior management positions rose to 26,000 in 2009 from 15,000 in 1987, only 0.32 per cent of women in the Canadian workforce held these positions, compared with 0.64 per cent of all men employed. Yet women made up almost half the Canadian labour force in 2009.

“We have this perception that things are moving more and more in the direction of true equality,” said Austin. “There is some evidence that we are actually going backwards.”

It appears these findings are not lost on most of the 500 female executives polled by Ipsos Reid for Randstad Canada, a company specializing in staffing, recruitment and human resources services.

Even the women who have climbed to the very top of the corporate world in Canada seem to believe the glass ceiling still exists.

Among the studies’ findings:

• Seventy-seven per cent of those polled felt there remained a moderate (39 per cent) or large (37 per cent) divide between the financial compensation a man receives in a leadership role and what a woman receives in the same position.

• Ninety-two per cent of those polled felt there is at least some divide in the opportunities for men and women to be promoted. Seventy-two per cent felt the divide continues to be moderate or very large.

• Seventy per cent of those polled felt that men are much more likely than women to be given the opportunity to make important decisions.

• Sixty-nine per cent felt that men are still frequently assigned the best jobs, tasks or projects, with those in British Columbia (73 per cent), Ontario (71 per cent) and Atlantic Canada (70 per cent) feeling this frequently to be the case.

• Eighty-three per cent felt that men are given somewhat more travel opportunities than women, with 53 per cent feeling there remains a very large or moderate divide when it comes to business travel.

Austin said that if Canada were to do only one thing to equalize the workplace for men and women, it would be to create a universal, high-quality child care system.

She pointed out that Quebec has done this to a large degree and the province has reaped the benefits. The Ipsos Reid survey showed that Quebec respondents generally feel there is less of a divide between men and women in terms of gender equality in the workforce than those in other parts of the country. Austin said women still provide on average about an hour-and-a-half more per day in child care, housework and elder care than men.

“Until we address the fundamental imbalance in unpaid care, we will always be struggling with the situation,” she said.

She feels the workplace imbalance, and the home and society conditions that tend to lead to it, should be addressed for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is a predicted looming shortage of skilled workers. Women tend to be under-employed.

Also, women in Canada are generally better educated than men. “We’re actually paying for that education and yet we are creating the conditions where we make it difficult for those women to use that education,” Austin said.

Then there is the bottom line. When organizations have diversity at the board table, they tend to out-perform those that don’t by a number of standard objective measures, including financial, said Austin.

There may be a general impression that women have come a long way in the workforce but the reality suggests otherwise.

“We are working against a dominant cultural paradigm which is predominating not just in the 20th century. It is historic,” said Austin. “It is something you constantly have to work at. You never get there.”